Mounts, Albums And Pages

I apologise in advance if this topic has already been hashed out. I tried but could not find anything so will ask and risk your approbation. I have reached the point where my topical collection (some 1600 stamps) is as complete as it is going to be and am looking to put it into an album. Discovered that Scott tells me the perfs, but not the stamp size in mm, stores note all the albums they sell but rarely the number of rings or what size pages fit, and most list all the various pages they sell but hardly ever which albums they might fit.

My questions therefore are first, Did most of you measure each stamp or group of stamps to determine the mount size? Did you pick an album and then just go with whatever pages the album maker provided? or vice versa? IN my case I need quadrille lined pages as I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler so I tried to find the pages but then discovered that none of the places that sell them (Subway, Wizard, iHobb etc.) match them to albums and so I am in need of direction and assistance. Again if this is old hat I apologize. Any advice though will be greatly appreciated.

Scott quadrille lined pages will fit Scott Specialty two-post or three-ring binders. The latter, unfortunately, are hard to find new right now.

POCKETS 68 ---- Start thinking of making your own pages . You got a huge supply of all different kinds of paper at office supply firms and then you have all types of three ring binders .

Made mine decisions based on what will be around 5 years 10 years , 20 or 30 years . Do NOT buy supplies or paper and binders where the firm is going to go out of business next year ....that has already happen to many collectors . I have 3 cd's of Steiner Pages just in case the firm goes out of business or the business is bought and they change it .
So my notice to you is think long term and stock your supplies and not depend on someone else being there if you like your method .

Pages: I have my stamps in various albums, but most are in pages of blank quadrille, although my preference is for black leaves , which are less common. Standard sizes that have been around for a century or more. I then put them in springbacks or hole-punch them for ring binders. If you're only mounting 1,600 stamos, you can go for good quality paper and binders.

Mounts: don't buy pre-cut mounts - buy strips and cut them to size yourself. You'll usually find ranges of strips off various heights - choose the biggest at that price point.

Pockets - These are all great questions and I continue to wrestle with different aspects of some of the points you are raising. One of the things I learned after I retired and jumped back into the hobby full bore was that I had to learn what would work for me by trial and error. Even with reading all the many valuable lessons learned of others, it just isn't the same as doing it yourself and seeing how you feel about it.

So I've ended up with different approaches for different things though I try to stay consistent within collecting "genres". With respect to albums, the different manufacturers all do it differently. I had to get a Scott Country album for Great Britain to realize that I really don't like how Scott breaks out semi-postals and airmails and so I've moved on to Schaubek for other countries I'm focusing on - except for Canada where I make my own pages using Album Easy.

With respect to mounts, Geoff is correct - buying the strips in different sizes is the way to go. I'm a perfectionist and I want my stamps to fit just right without being crowded and so I have a ton of different sizes. In one collection I use the clear ones and then in another I decided to switch to the black background - I think that's okay as long as you are consistent within a particular collection. Hawid mounts are an option also and since the tops are open you can get away with fewer sizes and trim those down to fit a variety of heights.

As for finding the quadrille page sizes, if you look on Wizard you will see that they have three sizes of quadrille pages - Scott Specialty, Scott National and Scott International that correspond to the different albums.

Schaubek also makes quadrille pages that match their albums. I'm pretty sure most manufacturers (who are still in business) do this.

Mainer - when I referred to strips, I was thinking of open-top mounts. I throw away the Showgard type if I come across them. It's amazing how many collectors damage stamps with them because they don't use them properly.

Showguard and Scott mounts are fine as long as you make the mount bigger than the stamp. Also use very little water or glue. Don't slap water on the mount. I recommend Scott paper or Palo Paper for best outlay. For regular paper, I recommend biege or non-white paper.